The construction of Russia’s first commercial railway began 178 years ago today. Completed in 1837, the 30-kilometer line served passengers traveling between St. Petersburg and Pavlovsk.
The Railway is one of the biggest architectural and technical monument in Russia nowadays and the most expensive railroad built in tsar Russia! In 1891 Russian Emperor Alexander III issued an edict about beginning of construction of Trans-Siberian Railway from Chelyabinsk to Vladivostok. This railway was aimed to connect European Russia and Asia. On May 31, 1891, construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway was begun.
Along shore of Baikal
Transsiberian railway line on shore of the Baikal lake, it stretches along the coast 200 kilometers.
The icebreaking ferry “Baikal”, intended for the carriage of train carriages through Lake Baikal following the Trans-Siberian Railway from January 4, 1900 began to make test runs, and on April 24 went on its first working run from port Baikal to port Mysovayaon another side of the lake.
On board the ferry there were 500 passengers, 167 horses, 2 locomotives, 3 carriages and 1000 pounds of cargo. The fare in the cabins of the first class was 2.3 rubles, in the second class – 1.5, in the third – 0.86 rubles. Almost all the way went through the ice virgin soil and lasted 17 hours.
In the opposite direction, “Baikal” was carrying passengers, mail, cargo and seven cars. Prior to the commissioning of the Circum-Baikal Railway in 1905, the “Baikal” and later built icebreaker “Angara” made two runs every day between the Baikal and Mysovaya piers. After that, the ferry operated as a reserve, ensuring the uninterrupted passage of trains on the Trans-Siberian Railway.
Chinese Eastern Railway
July 18, 1901 signed the act of putting into operation the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER). Just say, in the construction project of the Trans-Siberian Railway, the China-Eastern Railway was not listed. Sovereign Alexander III, a chauvinist and xenophobe, would never have allowed the laying of the Russian railroad over a foreign land.
But the emperor Nicholas II who replaced him, the all-powerful finance minister S.Yu. Witte was not hard to convince. Only the Governor-General of the Amur Region objected to the construction. But “for” were made by Primorye and Transbaikalia. The CER should have accelerated the connection of Chita with Vladivostok, and Vladivostok with the Trans-Siberian Railway and central Russia.
The CER is 3189 km of railway track, four tunnels, three large bridges and 107 stations and stations. Here was the longest bridge on the Siberian highway over the Sungari (at Harbin) and the longest (3077m) tunnel.
The technical operation of the CER began in 1901, and from June 1 in 1903. it opened a regular traffic from Vladivostok to Moscow. By the way, the initiator of the construction, the chairman of the cabinet of ministers Sergei Witte himself personally drove around the Great Siberian Rail Track through Harbin to Vladivostok.